Blog: Spiritual Disciplines
Beauty as a Spiritual Discipline
The combination of being low to the ground and not having lost their enchantment with the world results in a very slow walk that is full of curiosity and fascination.
16 Ways to Celebrate the Season of Creation
A whole month, in the midst of my favorite portion of Iowa’s weather, to encounter God through nature.
A Lectio Divina for My Inner Critic
If you're like me, channeling some Romans 7 Paul energy, join me in this Lectio Divina.
When God Tells You What to Pray
He’s in the midst of the fight and telling us to get on our knees and join the fray.
5 Ways to Enjoy God in the Sunshine
There is something about nature that turns our hearts to worship.
Holy Week: Culpability & Vulnerability
We practice spiritual disciplines of all kinds in the mundane so that we are prepared in times of testing.
Lent: Get Your Sunshine!
Too much of a good thing– UV rays, clothing, work– not only diminishes its goodness but can even be bad for us.
Lent: Simple Carbs
I run after these empty carbs (literally and figuratively) instead of choosing the Bread of Life that would nourish and satisfy for all time.
Lent: Time for an Eye Exam
This is one of those moments where I feel the words of the disciples deep in my bones: “This is a hard teaching."
Lent: Purging for Presence
I was itching to distract myself from this mood with some music or a podcast. Then, I remembered that one of my commitments was phone-free travel time. No music. No podcasts.
Lent: Simplify or Simpli-Chai?
So there I was in the coffee and tea aisle. As I was heading toward the coffee, I noticed my favorite chai latte packets, which had been out of stock for the last 5 months, were finally sitting on the shelf!
Spiritual Formation: Self-Help or Discipleship?
Is spiritual formation just code for Christianized self-help? Spiritual formation is the process of learning how to surrender our internal and external lives to the purposes of God’s Kingdom, becoming people of love for the sake of others.
What Is a Silent Retreat?
Our bodies fight and fight to keep up until an injury or sickness finally forces us to rest. On the one hand, this is a good argument for the weekly rhythm of sabbath. On the other hand, we may need a harder reset to heal us before Sabbath can sustain us.
Intentional Reset
When you embrace the type of life that flourishes within our good, God-given human limitations, you’ll wonder how you ever survived in the treadmill of our culture’s rhythms.
Prayer of the Hours... with a Twist
Prayer of the Hours is a monastic discipline that helps fight against both internal and external factors that keep us feeling a secular-sacred divide in life. And by theming it, I’m reminded that God really does care about the things I care about, making my relationship with Him feel both more intimate and more relevant to my whole life.
Hospitality without a Home
Hospitality is evidently about more than having friends over for dinner. It’s about making people feel at home as we act as the hands, feet, and mouthpiece of God.